Summary:
The Guidelines for the Advertisement of Foods establishes regulatory mandates to govern media approvals and restrict health claims.
Description:
General Overview on the Guidelines for the Advertisement of Foods
These Guidelines for the Advertisement of Foods are hereby issued to govern all advertisements of food products, whether locally manufactured, prepared, or imported into Ghana. There are also specific provisions applicable to Alcoholic Beverages and Energy Drinks.
The document sets out regulatory principles and specific operational recommendations for commercial food promotions. It establishes a mandatory vetting mechanism for all food advertisements prior to public broadcast. The framework shifts compliance responsibility onto media houses and advertising agencies to ensure administrative oversight. In addition, the text outlines strict prohibitions regarding functional and physiological performance claims.
Regarding FULL purposes, it defines the following concepts:
- Energy drinks: “any product so labeled as Energy Drink”.
- Pre-packaged food: “a food substance packaged or made up in advance in a container, ready for offer to the consumer, or for catering purposes”.
- Advertise: the act of promoting by public notice, the purchase and use of a food product.
- Advertisement: “a public notice, either by print or electronic media, offering or promoting the sale of a food product”.
- Media: “tools used to store and deliver information on data. Example Print, Radio, TV and Social Media”.
Highlights
Apart from addressing the requirements for prepackaged foods (Section 3.1), it creates the requirement that all advertisements of any prepackaged food must be registered by the Food and Drugs Authority. It also stipulates requirements for energy drinks (Section 3.3) and it addresses advertising targeting children (Section 3.2.14).
These guidelines also establish that energy drink advertisements shall include the following mandatory statements such as:
“a) ‘Excessive drinking can be detrimental to health’,
b) ‘Not Recommended for persons under 18 years, Lactating Mothers,
Pregnant Women and People Sensitive to Caffeine’
c) Any other Health Warnings as prescribed by the Authority”.
However, energy drinks “shall not contain statements or illustrations that
have the potential to lead to the abuse or excessive consumption of the product”. They also shall not be advertised as substitute for rest, remedy for fatigue, sexual non-performance or any other physical non-performance.